Serhiy Zhadan wins Peace Prize for the German Book Trade

Hello Gentle Reader,
 
The Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels or the Peace Prize for the German Book Trade, has a lengthy history, being awarded to some of the most remarkable writers throughout the mid-20^th Century into the early 21^st Century. Previous recipients included the minute but exceptionally mighty Nelly Sachs, whose mournful poems exist between the existential nodal points of the moths mourning despair and the butterflies’ transformative powers of personal change and breathtaking forgiveness; the truly philosophical parables and conundrums of Herman Hesse, whose exploration of an individual’s pursuit of authenticity, self-knowledge, and the greater worlds perplexities were not only engaging in their literary value, but masterful exploration of societies continued progression away from absolute and dogmatic principles of bygone eras, into more personal spiritual and philosophical considerations; the revolutionary classic children’s author Astrid Lindgren whose work engaged with children on a complex and moral level, never questioning, doubting or underestimating their ability for comprehension and unyielding empathy; the great Israeli public intellectual Amos Oz, whose political stances and expressive literary work provided a panoramic perspective of Israeli society, and the complicated clash of cultures, perspectives, and forces of Israel and Palestine. Other writers include Assia Djebar, Margaret Atwood, Claudio Magris, Chinua Achebe, and Svetlana Alexievich. Needless to say, the winners of the award are often high profile and socially conscious writers, who oppose tyrannical perspectives and encourage (as the prize would suggest) peaceful cooperative measures between people. This inevitably means there will always be a slight political edge to the award, when tempered with literary merit.
 
This years Peace Prize for the German Book Trade, topically will be awarded to the Ukrainian resistant poet, Serhiy Zhadan. The award is not without its merit, as Zhadan, has been a prolific and adamant critic of Russia’s aggression and Putin’s amalgamation and annexation ambitions, which have already cost Ukraine the Odessa peninsula, and now has erupted into a full on war between the two countries, which have become the battleground testing the West’s tolerance of Putin’s aggressive tactics. In turn, however, Serhiy Zhadan has become Ukraine’s rockstar poet, an upstart who without sentimentality bucks’ authority, Soviet era nostalgia (so typical of Putin’s politics), and continues to protest, criticize, and denounce the baseless murder, torture, and bombings of Russia on Ukraine, who has shown their spirit and their resolve is steely and iron hard, when pushing back against the Russian bear. Removing the political context and connotations of Serhiy Zhadan’s literary output, one sees a striking respect for language and a complex understanding of its abilities to motivate, change, and inspire individuals. After all Shadan’s background is in philology. This provides Serhiy Zhadan the ability to move between Russian, Ukrainian, Soviet-speak (era propaganda and language), as well as German and English with a playful flare; proving that the poet doesn’t rely on a reputational of political charged firebrand protest poetry. In fact, much of Serhiy Zhadan’s work traces the post-Soviet era individual and their disenfranchised abandonment in the larger world after the collapse and dissolution of the wall. His novels—especially his major breakthrough “Depeche Mode,”—continues to pull back the layers of the post-Soviet society, and the youth who were lost in a disconcerting instability of the times, which also includes postmodern tropes into punkish cultures, drinking, and apparently a recipe to make a bomb.
 
It is the Ukrainian East, where Serhiy Zhadan continues to find inspiration and understanding of the post-Soviet individual, and the disillusionment of the modern era. Here in post-industrial rustbelt cities, whose manufacturing has dried up, whose economy has run aground, whose lives have collapsed, the desolation and despair can poignantly be felt. This is also the region, which Russia currently occupies the most. The famous steel mill of Mariupol immediately comes to mind of resistance in this era of Soviet nostalgia. It is here, and these roots in Eastern Ukraine, that separates Serhiy Zhadan from other contemporary Ukrainian writers, is his understanding of the psychology and language of the post-Soviet landscape of Eastern Ukraine, its abandoned factories, its diminished place, it’s a landscape of the lost and what has been, and therefore becomes more palpable to understand why this region seeks benefit and appeal in strengthening ones ties with Russia, if not an outright occupancy. This, however, does not mean that Serhiy Zhadan does not promote and advocate for resistance—as he clearly does; but with more of a Charles Bukowski understanding, and an impassioned revolutionary at his core, who seeks Ukraine not necessarily as a completely post-Soviet state, but one still grappling with the haunting echoes of its Soviet past.
 
In awarding Serhiy Zhadan the Peace Prize for the German Book Trade, is an apparent political statement, it’s a denouncement of Russia’s occupancy and aggression in Ukraine and the continued battery and war taking place there. It also recognizes Serhiy Zhadan’s acute understanding of the Eastern Ukraine’s crisis with its past, identity, culture, and disillusionment with the present, which is expertly displayed in both his poetry of resistance, and his novels of psychological examination of a land left behind.
 
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
 
M. Mary